DirecTV signal quality

[bhbuckeye]

Is it my imagination or was the signal quality of the various NCAA games on ABC regional yesterday very subpar...(somewhat pixelated) I have local channels (SD) in columbus OH...also have HD and it was fine...

What is the deal...not enough bandwith...are they compressing too much (MPEG2 is what they use?)

Local channels (SD) usually look OK...but yesterday it was almost painful to watch... (I only have a 42" set...I can't imagine how bad it would have looked on a 60"

Theories?

thanks

[Scorpion King]

I have had DirectTV since 1995. I think pay per view and HD and all those moving logos and advertisments all over the screen now days has cut their quality level (bandwidth per channel allocation) a bunch. I don't know. So much compression artifacts now days makes it tough to get a decent capture, besides all that junk on the screen. But there is a bright side I guess... the commercials usually look pretty good.

Good luck.

[Abbadon]

Pixelated picture is not new in DirecTV channels, there was a time when I used to watch several channels in a computer screen and macroblocks were common.

[edDV]

There are two DirecTV's the old (520x480 highly compressed MPeg2) and the new "1000 channel" digital SD/HDTV MPeg4 service.

If you have the old tuner box, you are conditioned. If you get the new HD box and a good HDTV, the MPeg4 HD stuff will look OK but the old Mpeg2 channels will look like crap. It follows the old WWII slogan, "once they have seen Paris" there is no coming home to the farm.

[TBoneit]

Or to put it another way over on another site devoted to Satellite TV there have been discussions from the HD users about getting credit for the missing HD channel on sundays.

It seems that until they get the new bird up and running that on sundays they have to pull one of their regular HD channels to make room for the NFL in HD.

So it seems that they are slightly overextended on bandwidth needs versus available right now.

I started looking at their offerings when I was chatting with a longtime customer about how I'd added a HD DVR recently to my Dishnetwork subscription recently. He has DirecTV. I was saying so how do you like Rave HD and Monsters HD, and I heard huh? turns out that right now DIsh is way ahead on national HD channels. And that the Dish VIP622 may be a better DVR as it can record two HD channels from Sat. and a third from OTA. Whil you watch two other previously recorded events. One in HD and one in Sd to another TV over coax. Right now counting 4 Locals in HD + PPV channel and not counting the HBO/Starz/Showtime HD feeds I'm around 30 channels of HD.

Things may turn around as Rupert Murdock has stated 100 channels of HD are coming. And the HR-20 is expected once they get the bugs out to be a good HD DVR with Mpeg4 too.

I jumped off of the DirecTV ship way back when they atarted adding locals and the macroblocks were terrible. I had them first and then I was running both side by side for over a 1/2 year to decide. The way the picture got so bad and then Dishnetwork came out with a DVR that recorded the stream direct with no encoding needed. I jumped. So far I have 1 1 tuner dish SD DVR, 1 dual tuner SD DVR and a 622 2 Tuner + OTA HD DVR still in use.

Oh yes that forum would be either www.dbstalk.com or www.dbsforums.com. dbstalk seems more active right now.

[Seeker47]

Appreciate this info, as I did not realize there was that much of a problem. (I only get a chance to watch DirecTv elsewhere, once in a while, as a guest.) I had thought the DirecTV channel packages looked more attractive than what I saw in the Dish brochures. (And anyone interested in the NFL or MLB packages is pretty much stuck with DirecTv.) However, pq is quite important to me, and I do record a lot of movies for later viewing. I already know that the digital cable service I've seen is decidedly mediocre, and sometimes wasn't even that good. So, a switch to satellite service has to be an improvement, or else forget it.

Does anyone know if that premium sat service -- Voom, or Zoom, or whatever they called it -- survived ? Is (or was) it any good ?

[TBoneit]

Voom is what you are referring to. It is gone and was absorbed in part by Dishnetwork. Many of the HD channels on Dish are Voom channels. From the Dishnetwork page. Their most expensive Platinum package has in HD
High-Definition Channels

Showtime HD
Starz HDTV
HBO HD
Animania HD
Family Room HD
GamePlay HD
Discovery HD Theater
Equator HD
National Geographic Channel HD
DISH Network PPV in HD
Film Fest HD
Food Network HD
HDNet Movies
Kung Fu HD
Monsters HD
World Cinema HD
HDNews
Rave HD
ESPN HD
ESPN2 HD
NFL Network HD
Rush HD
WorldSport HD
Gallery HD
HDNet
HGTV HD
TNT HD
Treasure HD
Ultra HD
Universal HD
http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/programming/dishhd/programming/pricingandpackages/p...um/index.shtml
The above page shows all the HD packages.

And the DirecTv page link is: http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/packProg/channelChart2.jsp?assetId=1100084
TNT HD
ESPN HD
ESPN2 HD
Universal HD
Discovery HD Theater
HDNet Movies
HDNet
High-Definition Pay Per View
HBO® HD
SHOWTIME® HD
This is their HD Sports page link: http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPage.jsp?assetId=2300004

A Couple of things to note the MPEG4 DVRs from Dish are capable of feeding two TV sets with different programming 1 set in HD and one in SD and have two Sat tuners and one OTA HD only so you could record three HD things at one time or HD OTA and two SD via Satellite at the same watching 2 previously recorded shows. Kind of neat, The SD feed is via Coax to another room and has a UHF remote to control its viewing.

Either provider may or may not have your locals in SD and or HD.

one other caveat the NFL Network HD is a different channel than the exclusive to DirecTV NFL package.
This would be the Dish Sports available: http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/programming/sports_overview/index.shtml and for the entire season ticket list: https://customersupport.dishnetwork.com/customercare/payperview/prepSeasonTicketList.do

FWIW I have the HD Gold package as I don't see much od interest to me in Showtime/HBO/Cinemax or Starz premiums. in the Gold package I get these premiums and it is enough.
ENCORE (WEST)
ENCORE ACTION
ENCORE Drama
ENCORE LOVE
Encore Mystery
Encore Wam
ENCORE WESTERNS
and
The Movie Channel (West)
The Movie Channel xtra (West)

Cheers

Edited for spelling

[Seeker47]

Thanks for the info, TBoneit.

My can't-do-without channels include IFC, Sundance, and TCM. I do get a number of the premium movie channels as well. No HD, so far. DirecTV is widely reported as not passing the Broadcast Flag (yet), so I would hope that Dish is the same way.

In regard to any provider -- cable or sat -- that does pass the BF, how could they offer a DVR option (if they do offer one), unless the particular Tivo-type device they provide with this option has some built-in BF-rejection circuitry ?

I'd also to like to make sure I correctly understood something that was mentioned here: the MPEG4 content on Dish is irrelevant to us for recording purposes, no matter which DVR or DVDR we may happen to be using ?

[edDV]

Cable quality varies locally. If you have a modern 750MHz or up system, the quality can be very good but the number of HD channels is limited to 20 or so. The HD number will go up as analog service is decreased to the basics only. Each analog channel taken away frees space for 2 HD or 6-8 SD channels.

Most over the air tuners, cable and DBS are "broadcast flag" ready but congress hasn't passed the bill so nobody is using it yet. Direct digital recording is usually blocked on all but the locals on all of the services although cable companies make this decision locally.

Bottom line, most users need to record to the DVR or off the analog outputs.

[TBoneit]

Both Dish and DirecTv are using MPEG4 for some channels. Since you can only capture the analog out how the video is transported has no impact.

BF has to be passed on through either providers DVRs. Since they both record and buffer whatever is showing a no record BF flag would mean they couldn't display it as I understand it. What they can do is have the BF flag passed through transparently that says for example record once or do not record or whatever to any devices on the outputs.

Quoted: "I'd also to like to make sure I correctly understood something that was mentioned here: the MPEG4 content on Dish is irrelevant to us for recording purposes, no matter which DVR or DVDR we may happen to be using ?"
If you use a Providers DVR then only the newest models support MPEG4 reception, OTOH if you feed analog out to a Tivo for example it is analog. I think the Series 3 Tivo only records HD OTA.